Jason Collins, No. 98, a Stanford alumnus, was a little-known center who has played for six teams in his 12-year career.

Jason Collins, No. 98, a Stanford alumnus, was a little-known center who has played for six teams in his 12-year career.

Photo: Barton Silverman, New York Times

Jason Collins' coming out shifts dialogue

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Outside of die-hard NBA fans, few Americans knew who Jason Collins was before Monday. But the Stanford alumnus stands to help reshape the country's politics with three short sentences in Monday's online edition of Sports Illustrated:

"I'm a 34-year-old NBA center. I'm black. And I'm gay."

In becoming the first active male athlete in a major U.S. team sport to publicly declare his homosexuality, Collins is breaking one of the nation's most powerful cultural taboos.

By challenging the airtight homophobia that seals sports locker rooms, analysts say, the 7-foot, 255-pound, hard-nosed center could help change the cultural stereotype of gay men - especially among African Americans and blue-collar men who are some of pro basketball's most devoted fans.

Sports is one of the last bipartisan gathering points in American culture, so Collins' story will reach audiences that may not favor gay rights or same-sex marriage. Already, Collins' coming-out party has rippled beyond the locker room, with a congratulatory call Monday from President Obama and a tweet from first lady Michelle Obama saying, "This is a huge step forward for our country. We've got your back!"

"There are basketball fans all across the country," said Gregory Angelo, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans, a nationwide gay GOP political organization. "This helps move the issue beyond the progressive coasts and outside the liberal bubble into the heartland of the country."

Collins started the day as an obscure player who had scored an average of 3.6 points a game for a half-dozen teams over a dozen seasons. On Monday morning, he had about 3,700 Twitter followers. By dinnertime, he had 60,000.

"It is enormous," said Matt Foreman, a national gay-rights leader for more than 20 years who directs gay and immigrant rights programs at the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Fund in San Francisco.

Hurdles remain

However, Foreman cautioned that although Collins' announcement creates a foundation for political change, "it doesn't make political change."

The federal government, Foreman noted, does not protect gays, lesbians, bisexuals or transgender people from job discrimination. Twenty-nine states have no laws that ban discrimination based on sexual orientation, and a majority of states, including California, explicitly ban same-sex marriage.

At the same time, however, a series of high-profile Americans have come out in recent years to generally positive reactions, including CNN anchor Anderson Cooper. Nike, which has a sponsorship deal with Collins, said Monday that it supported him, as did the NBA.

"The law is so far behind popular culture, it is astounding," Foreman said. "But all of this helps."

Shifting views

Much of the cultural and political impact of Collins' story could be on men - particularly blue-collar men, who are not as supportive of lesbian and gay issues as college graduates, said Amy Simon, an Oakland pollster who has done some of the nation's most extensive polling on LGBT issues.

Over the past year, there has been a huge shift in the attitudes of African American voters, a majority of whom now support same-sex marriage rights, Simon said. She attributes the shift to Obama's backing of same-sex marriage in 2012, along with efforts by the NAACP and several high-profile African American pastors to help pass a same-sex ballot measure in Maryland last fall.

Collins will be key in continuing to change attitudes among African Americans, said Ron Buckmire, a math professor at Occidental College who has served on the boards of several LGBT organizations that have done outreach among blacks in California.

"He helps break the stereotype of what gay men are supposed to look and act like," Buckmire said.

Grabbing attention

Collins will bring the issue of gay equality to the attention of "people like my relatives back in Tennessee, who would never talk about this stuff unless I make them," said Helen Carroll, a Mountain View resident and former college basketball coach and athletic director. She heads the Sports Project, which helps fight homophobia for the National Center for Lesbian Rights in San Francisco.

But one hurdle remains. Collins is a free agent who last played for the Washington Wizards and is looking for work next season. Even though bruising 7-footers are in demand in the NBA, more than half the 14 team general managers contacted by ESPN on Monday said they doubted that Collins, a substitute the past few years, would be in the league next season.

One told ESPN: "I don't think (sexual orientation) is the issue. I think 'Can he still play?' is the issue."

Said Carroll: "Now I just hope he gets picked up by some team next year."